A conservation project is helping identify and restore wildlife-rich sites previously degraded and dried up

When Joe Gray coppiced a patch of woodland on his Essex farm, he noticed that an abandoned pond sprang back into life after it was exposed to sunlight.

“It was a hole in the woods with some leaves in it – we didn’t think of it as a pond,” he says. Since then, he and his wife, Emma, have restored 11 “zombie” ponds on their 450-hectare (1,100-acre) regenerative farm. They’ve also persuaded a group of neighbouring farmers to bring back to life 80 ponds within a 3-mile (5km) radius near Braintree.